Examples:
No Latitude
A-Rock-No-Phobia

Well, you perform some trigonometry to identify the longitudinal and latitudinal distances then perform some algebra to convert those distances into coordinates. Something new that I learned is that the distance between each longitudinal degree is different than the distance between each latitudinal degree. Hence you have to use different divisors for each to determine the coordinates.

The calculator still needs to handle situations where the distance hops over a longitudinal or latitudinal degree, but for most puzzles of this type the calculator will work fine. The calculator even handles jumps over degrees, so adding thousands of feet shouldn’t trip it from providing the correct coordinates.

Here’s what to enter:

• Distance (Feet) = the distance from the center point in feet. If you’re interested in metric entry and results, post a comment.
• Heading (Compass Degrees) = the heading in compass degrees. 0 degrees is due North, 90 degrees is due East, 180 degrees is due South, and 270 degrees is due West.
• Latitude of Origin “N” = coordinates in the format “N XX° YYY.ZZZZ’” where XX is the degrees and YYY.ZZZZ is the decimal minutes. This is the common form that Geocaching.com provides for coordinates.
• Longitude of Origin “W” = the same as the Latitude, only for Longitude. Because it’s frozen as “W”, this calculator will only work for the western hemisphere. Let me know if you’re in the Eastern (or Southern) hemisphere and would like me to update the calculator to accommodate you.

The Calculations are for nerds. The Results are for you. The coordinate results should display a link to Google maps when you’ve entered in all the criteria.

Open the Popup Coordinate Distance Calculator

Have fun and post a comment to let me know if it’s useful.

When I was young I just wanted to make stuff for the pleasure of it. When I got older I was told that wasn’t a way to make a living.

I disagree. God made things for a living so I guess those people’s attempts to civilize me into a common worker bee never quite stuck because of my higher childlike “ideals”.

My parents were pretty good with supporting me through it. Mom is an excellent painter and Dad is a great musician. They weren’t like the other grown ups who usually attended school board council meetings. That is, they weren’t looking for a way to build a society – just looking for a way to raise great kids.

If more people took up their personal responsibility to raise their kids instead of handing their kids off to the village (idiots) to raise them, I think they would discover that children are important… they’re a joy… they bring back those squishy playdough, colored in fingerpaint, bruised knees from playing in the rocks moments. That imagination is never really lost – not completely, anyway – it’s just suppressed. And like a good expectorant, when you have kids that creativity just spits right back up!

Enjoy the free cave and art textures:
Cave Textures
Art Textures

I’m cheap. If someone offers a good free product, it draws more attention than a paid one. Below are some free audio book resources online. All legal. All public domain.

The Human-Read audio books at Project Gutenberg contains a series of LibriVox recordings. What sets LibriVox apart is it’s community oriented style. People record themselves reading a chapter of a book then submit it. Though most books appear to be read by the same person, there are times that different chapters are read by different people throughout the experience.

I try to avoid the automated text to speech processes. The old ones were horrific and sounded more like a 1980′s TI-99. The newer ones sound like they recorded a person speaking a few hundred words then vicariously cut and pasted the audio. Although an improvement, it lacks the tonal inflection and emotion that makes story listening a pleasurable experience.

Of course, the best way to get enjoyable audio from a good book is to have a loved one read it. I read to my children almost every night and even record a few books for times when I’m away on business. Reading becomes interactive as the children start asking questions and adding their own commentary. It gives me insight to their likes and dislikes and provides the benefit of reminiscing over childrens’ books that have been long forgotten from my own youth.

The IT Crowd Ringtone.
It’s the free remix track offered by Painting By Numbers trimmed down to fit and converted to be read as an iPhone ringtone. Certainly it would have been nice to keep the full 47 second hum-dinger, but Apple forces some limits on this no matter what the file size.

Originally, I wanted to make a ringtone that would loop nicely – and did, but it didn’t start off where I wanted it to. Besides, who lets their phone ring for more than 30 seconds?

So I opted to just trim out the middle – you get the start and the finish. It’s like a bologna sandwich without the bologna!

The IT Crowd (remix for ringtones).m4r

For those who can play regular mp3s as ringtones, we’ve got you covered:
The IT Crowd remix ringtone.mp3

Lately I’ve been on a paper-craft kick. When I was younger, it had to be solid square sheet origami. Sometimes, however, you’ve got to cut paper into funny shapes and glue them together… take a look at the Millennium Falcon!

I finished working on the TIE-Fighter. If you plan to do the same, make sure you print the wing sheet 4 times. This will provide you with the pieces the inside and outside of each wing.

Go Build Your Own!
SF PaperCraftGallery